The Quinnipiac University athletics department announced changes to its varsity sports sponsorship, demoting the women’s rugby team from varsity to club status and adding a men’s indoor and outdoor track and field team instead, according to AthleticBusiness.
Sammi Agostin, a sixth-semester junior on the team who’s in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program, said that the team found out in a meeting 20 minutes before their scheduled practice time.
“It was immediately devastating,” Agostin said.
Agostin said the team was met by Director of Athletics Greg Amodio and Deputy Director of Athletics Sarah Fraser. Amodio sat down, pulled a script out of a manila folder and stated that due to resource allocation and Title IX compliance, they’ve chosen to move women’s rugby from varsity to club status, effective May 11.
“When we heard varsity to club, everyone in the room started crying.” Agostin said. “We take pride in being pioneers of NCAA Division I women’s rugby, and having that stripped away for something that wasn’t our fault — We haven’t even had a losing season. It feels so bad. In fact, we actually bring money to the school and have a profit margin.”
Former professional rugby player Ilona Maher, a two-time Olympian and Olympic medalist who won bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympics, played rugby at Quinnipiac for three years.
On an Instagram story, Maher tagged the school and their athletics program and captioned the post “Shame on you.”
The team achieved major success by winning three consecutive Division I national championships in 2015, 2016 and 2017, according to Goff Rugby Report.
A change.org petition to reinstate Quinnipiac women’s rugby has over 24,000 verified signatures.
Lucy Lamborn, an eighth-semester Quinnipiac student who captains the team said the team has started a petition and a GoFundMe to raise legal fees to “investigate why this decision was made, especially since [the administrators] aren’t reaching back out to [the team].”
Lamborn said the number of people that have signed the petition is double the student population at Quinnipiac.
“Clearly, our mission goes beyond our community,” Lamborn said. “We have families from California, the UK, New Zealand and USA Rugby supporters behind us.”
Lamborn said that the team is asking for “the respect [they and their coaches] deserve.”
“Their actions have displayed that they do not think we matter, but we have just as much of a right to exist as anyone else,” Lamborn said. “Quinnipiac Rugby was the second Division I program in the country and has been the most stable since 2010… We are calling on the community to speak out.”